How can educational researchers, school practitioners and (initial) teacher training in Frankfurt and the surrounding area collaborate and benefit from each other with a long-term perspective? In the Campus Schools Programme, we are establishing strong and sustainable collaborations at the interface between theory and practice and develop them further together.
How can children receive optimal support in their development? What risks exist concerning their learning achievement, for example regarding children with learning disorders, ADHD or immigrant children? How do carers and teachers cope with the growing heterogeneity in children’s day-care institutions and schools? What learning measures are promising with respect to providing support to children that is adapted to their individual needs?
IDeA (Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk) is an interdisciplinary research centre in Frankfurt/Main, founded in 2008 subject to funding from the LOEWE initiative by the federal state of Hesse. Its founding institutions are the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Frankfurt Sigmund-Freud-Institute. Members of the centre contribute their expertise from the fields of psychology, educational science, psycholinguistics, neuroscience, diverse subject didactics, sociology and psychoanalysis.
IDeA focuses on empirical studies of children at infancy, pre-school and primary school age who for different reasons – e.g. (neuro)cognitive or socio-emotional – bear a higher risk of impairment with respect to cognitive abilities required at school.
Research activities are carried out in three themes: Individual Development focuses on developmental and learning processes of children. Adaptive Education is concerned with the identification of children's specific living and learning conditions and determine the extent to which educational programmes take these contexts into consideration. Projects in the research theme of Professionalization explore the competencies, orientations, and attitudes of educators and teachers in daycare facilities, kindergartens, and elementary schools.
The IDeA lab offers its researchers facilities and personnel to support a wide variety of behavioral and neurocognitive studies.
The IDeA Centre is co-ordinated and administrated at the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education.
Scientific coordinator: Prof. Dr. Florian Schmiedek
Head of IDeA coordination: Dr. Jeanette Ziehm
Head of IDeA lab: Dr. Björn Rump
Selected IDeA projects at DIPF
The project EAGLeS examines 5th and 6th graders’ acquisition of English as a foreign language literacy (reading, spelling, grammar) in regard to systematic differences between students with poor native German literacy and their non-afflicted peers. Additionally, a standardized test measuring English as a foreign language literacy will be developed and validated.
The EiKlar project investigates learning processes using neurophysiological measures. The aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of learning processes inside the classroom.
The project FePrax examines the implementation of diagnostic practice in the field of special needs education focusing on the enhancement foci of "learning", "language", "emotional and social development", "mental development", and "autism spectrum disorder" in five federal states of Germany.
The Project FLINK aims at investigating a computerised reading fluency training for children with average and below average reading proficiency in Grades 3 to 6. Up to 54 training sessions are offered within a school year. FLINK will be accompanied by regularly administered learning diagnostics, can be presented in group settings and handled mostly autonomously by the participants.
Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. The project Gamified Assessment investigates the role of gamification elements in testing situations.
Hector Children’s Academies are extracurricular institutions that offer support to gifted children under the age of ten; they endorse a holistic approach. The aim of the project is a scientific monitoring of the support program. This includes the support of the implementation, the evaluation of the courses offered, the investigation of related scientific questions and the qualification of the coordinators of the Hector Children's Academies.
As part of this project, various activities are carried out to encourage families, students and teachers to actively participate in the IDeA Centre's studies.
In the INCLASS project, three tools are being developed to support school staff in mainstream schools in implementing autism-sensitive inclusive teaching: a digital training platform and a self-assessment tool, as well as a smartphone app to identify individual barriers of individual autistic children.
In the InSel project, we investigate how well teachers can recognise internalising symptoms in their students. In addition, we develope and test a psychoeducational intervention for teachers regarding internalising behaviour problems in school children.
Teachers have practical expertise, researchers have research knowledge. We bring both together – on an information website for primary school teachers. Science and school practitioners jointly create a digital information service with practice-relevant topics related to low performing students.
The LEGA study investigates the use of reading strategies applied by elementary school children. Strategy usage is compared across grades and related to available vocabulary and contextual information. The aim of the study is to understand more about the conditions under which efficient (retrieval-) strategies, which are essential for fluent reading, are used and how this usage can be supported.
LONDI is an online platform for the diagnosis and remediation of developmental disorders of scholastic skills and related difficulties. The joint project LONDI 2 aims to make this online platform usable and to evaluate it. The aim is a wide dissemination of the platform and an effective and sustainable use especially at primary schools but also in therapy and by parents.
The project MeBis investigates how children, parents and teachers handle multilingualism in primary education and which attitudes are associated with it. The focus is on the use of several languages when learning and reading aloud at home as well as in the classroom with a particular focus on grammar and language comparisons.
The research project MORAL investigates the socio-moral development of children and adolescents with a strong focus on intergroup processes and social cognition. Another focus of the project is the training of educators and teachers regarding social exclusion among children and adolescents.
The Project MotivO aims at investigating and comparing motivational aspects of reading achievement across orthographies (German vs. Hebrew). Within the context of a cooperation project, German and Israeli 2nd and 4th Graders will be compared regarding their reading motivation and reading achievement in a cross-language research design to detect positive or negative feelings towards reading as well as changes across time.
The project PERLE investigates whether computer-based promotion of mathematical competencies leads to an improvement in recognition skills and to increased and elaborated action planning among early childhood educators.
This project evaluates the potential of asking students to generate predictions to improve their learning. Further, it investigates the mechanisms that determine its success and asks whether there are age-related differences in its effectiveness.
The PROMPT project focuses on developing an evidence-based, child-friendly learning planner app that supports school children in self-regulated learning with digital media.
The PuS-SeL project investigates components, influence factors and approaches to promote self-regulation of learning among primary school children.
The project RABE 2 examines the persistence and the psychosocial consequences of scholastic learning disabilities from primary school age up to young adulthood. The study focusses risk factors and consequences of learning disorders but will also look at participant’s coping strategies.
The project Stereo-Disk investigates how stereotypes of teachers in inclusive school contexts affect students' assessments and develops support formats to reduce their influence.
The project Stereo-no-GO examines inequalities based on gender and origin in the STEM fields and in programs for gifted children.
Using different methodological approaches (experimental vignette studies, ambulatory assessment and behavioural observations), this project examines teachers‘ reactions to students‘ misbehavior at school.
The WieSeL project deals with the self-regulatory competence of teachers. The focus is on identifying which aspects of teacher competence support teachers’ promotion of self-regulation of learning among their students.
The project zEbra examines the associations between the use of social media and well-being among children and adolescents. Measuring instruments are being developed that validly assess smartphone use of different social media platforms and the social interactions that take place online.
